Technical Advisory Group

The Technical Advisory Group was established by the National Board to support assessment, psychometric, and certification efforts by providing guidance to the Certification Council and staff on best practices related to validity, reliability, accuracy, and fairness.

Lloyd Bond

Retired Senior ScholarCarnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching

Lloyd Bond (Ph. D., 1976, Psychology/Psychometrics, The Johns Hopkins University) is a retired (2008) Senior Scholar with the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching in Stanford California and Emeritus Professor of Educational Research at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. From 2002 to 2008 he was a Senior Scholar at Carnegie working in the area of assessment across several Carnegie Foundation programs.

Professor Bond taught test theory and psychometrics at the University of Pittsburgh from 1976 to 1988, and at the University of North Carolina (Greensboro) from 1988 to 2002.

Dr. Bond has published widely in the area of assessment, measurement theory, and testing policy and has made fundamental contributions to the measurement of teaching performance and to the literature on measures of quantitative reasoning. He has held editorial positions on the leading journals in educational and psychological measurement and serves on numerous commissions and panels devoted to testing and testing policy. He has served on two prior AERA/APA/NCME committees to revise the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing, and is currently a member of the Design and Analysis Committee of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).

A fellow of both The American Psychological Association and the American Educational Research Association (AERA), Professor Bond is the recipient of numerous honors and awards, including the Presidential Citation from AERA for Contributions to Educational Measurement.

Dr. Bond was recently honored by having the new K-8 charter school in the Chicago neighborhood where he grew up named in his honor.

Michael C. Rodriguez

Professor of Quantitative Methods in EducationUniversity of Minnesota

Dr. Rodriguez is Professor of Quantitative Methods in Education at the University of Minnesota (since 1999), and received his PhD in Educational Measurement & Quantitative Methods from Michigan State University.

He holds the endowed Campbell Leadership Chair in Education and Human Development with a focus on educational equity, and is a member of the University’s Academy of Distinguished Teachers. He is an active member of the National Council on Measurement in Education and currently serves on a number of technical advisory committees including with the US Department of Defense for Military Personnel Testing, the National Assessment of Educational Progress, Buros Center for Testing, ACT, the Association of American Medical Colleges, and the New York Department of Education.

Dr. Rodriguez is the recipient of the 2005 Albert J. Harris Research Award of the International Reading Association. His research and publications address item writing and test design, classroom assessment, measurement accessibility, early literacy and reading, and youth development. His book, The College Instructor’s Guide to Writing Test Items, was recently published by Routledge (2017).

Gerald J. Melican

Testing, Measurement and Psychometrics ConsultantIndependent

Dr. Melican is an independent consultant in testing, measurement and psychometrics. He previously worked at Dallas Independent School District, Educational Testing Service, the American Institute for Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), and the College Board. He has extensive research and practical experience in all aspects of assessment from initial conceptualization to score reporting and analyses. His major areas include validity, reliability, standard setting, equating, and standard setting.

As Chief Psychometrician at College Board he provided consultation to Research, Psychometric, Test Development, Program Direction, and Operations staff members for all College Board testing programs including SAT Reasoning, AP, and Accuplacer. Accuplacer is a computer-adaptive test for course placement used by community and four-year colleges. Tasks included developing and reviewing research projects and developing psychometrics plans, generating quality control procedures and providing communications with clients and vendors.

As Director of Content and Psychometrics at the AICPA Dr. Melican led the research, psychometric, quality control and content efforts to develop the computer-based Uniform CPA Examination. The computer-based CPA Examination contains innovative case studies and uses a Computer Assisted Sequential Testlet algorithm.

During 19 years at ETS, he led the statistical teams for a variety of programs including the Graduate Record Exam (GRE), Graduate Management Admissions Test (GMAT), Praxis, SAT and PSAT/NMSQT. His teams were responsible for the statistical and quality control aspects of each testing program including item analyses, equating, and validity research. The PRAXIS examination program is part of teacher licensure process and during his tenure the Praxis transitioned from a paper-based to a computer-adaptive testing program. He was on the Board of Review for 12 years. The Board of Review is responsible for reviewing information concerning any test taker of group of test takers with aberrant score results and making recommendation for next steps concerning release of their scores.

At the Dallas Independent School District he was a Principal Evaluator working with K-8 school teachers to develop end of year tests to provide information to both the current teacher and the teacher in the next grade.

As a consultant Dr. Melican has been on Technical Advisory Committees for the Department of Defense for the ASVAB and the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards and serves on Board of Editors for journal, Applied Measurement in Education, and for the National Council on Measurement in Education’s Newsletter.

Suzanne Lane

Professor of Research MethodologySchool of Education, University of Pittsburgh

Suzanne Lane is a professor in the Research Methodology program in the School of Education at the University of Pittsburgh. Her scholarly interests are in educational measurement and testing, with a focus on design, technical, validity, and policy issues in large scale testing.

She has published in the Journal of Educational Measurement, Applied Measurement in Education, Educational Assessment, and Educational Measurement: Issues and Practice. She was the President of NCME (2003-2004), Vice President of Division D-AERA (2000-2002), member of the Joint Committee for revising the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing (1993-1999).

She has served on the Editorial Boards for the Journal of Educational Measurement, Applied Measurement in Education, Educational Assessment, Educational Researcher, and Educational Measurement: Issues and Practice.

Cynthia Searcy

Senior Director of Research and DevelopmentMedical College Admission Test, Association of American Medical Colleges

Cynthia Searcy, Ph.D. is the Senior Director of Research and Development for the Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) at the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC). She oversees the development, psychometrics, and validation research for the MCAT exam. The validity research program includes studies of the fairness, impact, use, and predictive validity of the MCAT exam in selecting medical students who will succeed in medical school and beyond. The validity research program is supported by a research collaboration with representatives from 21 medical schools in the U.S. and Canada and 2 pre-health advisors from undergraduate institutions that helps participating institutions improve decisions about student selection. Prior to joining the AAMC Dr. Searcy served as the Managing Director of Assessment at the Federation of State Boards of Physical Therapy, overseeing the licensure examination programs for physical therapists and physical therapist assistants.

Dr. Searcy has a Ph.D. in applied psychology from the University of Georgia and has over 20 years’ experience conducting research on educational, admissions, and credentialing assessments.

Ada Woo

Senior Director of Strategy Implementation and OperationsACTNext by ACT

Ada Woo is ACTNext by ACT’s senior director of strategy implementation and operations. Prior to joining the ACTNext by ACT team, Ada was director of measurement and testing at the National Council of State Boards of Nursing (NCSBN). At NCSBN, she led the psychometric and research staff on the development of nursing and allied health testing programs. In 2015, Ada and her team at NCSBN successfully transitioned and adapted the NCLEX-RN licensure examination as the entry-to-practice test for registered nurses in ten jurisdictions in Canada. This marked the first international expansion of the NCLEX program. Ada’s research interests include adaptive testing, technology enhanced item types and assessment of decision-making as it relates to job performance. She was one of the lead researchers in the next generation NCLEX examination redesign project, where the project focused on the assessment of nursing clinical-judgment on the licensure examination.

Ada has over a decade of experience in the licensure and certification testing field. In addition to her work in psychometrics and research, Ada is an active member in the assessment industry. She has served as chairs of the National Council of Measurement in Education outreach committee and the Association of Test Publishers certification and licensure division. She is currently a member of multiple testing organization technical advisory groups. She holds a PhD in Quantitative Psychology from the University of Texas at Arlington.